


Piece of Mind

by riverdaze



Series: Tendou Week [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Greek Religion & Lore Fusion, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Asexual Tendou Satori, Asexual Ushijima Wakatoshi, Azuchi–Momoyama Period, Bird/Human Hybrids, Drowning, Edo Period, M/M, Morally Ambiguous Character, Ocean, Sailing, Samurai, Sirens, Youkai, again he's a siren, because siren, samurai ushijima, siren tendou, the area right between them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24283774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverdaze/pseuds/riverdaze
Summary: Tendou has a keen intuition for human desire. Never has he failed to entrance a human with his song.Those things are not related.Humans, after all, are predictable. Why change the song when they always want the same things?
Relationships: Tendou Satori/Ushijima Wakatoshi
Series: Tendou Week [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1751638
Comments: 21
Kudos: 129
Collections: TendouWeek2020, Ushiten Week 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tendou Week 2020 Day 2: **~~pets/~~ animals, guess monster, au: fantasy**
> 
> I'm awarding myself a virtual level up for fitting in all of today's prompts in one piece... kinda. XD

The disturbed waters break across the looming ship’s wooden sides, rocking it back and forth, but not deterring it from its course.

It is not the first ship of its kind--large and with horizontally shingled square sails--Tendou has seen in his waters, but it is the first that does not so much as waver when he opens his mouth and releases his song.

The music dances over the water and travels as a stowaway on the wind. The lyrics are in a language indiscernible to human ears, a soothing inaudible pitch, but some things don’t need translation. The promises, suggestive and explicit both, are clear as the droplets that cling to Tendou’s crimson feathers like dew. He knows they must reach the raised area under a small roof where Tendou can make out a single human form, steering the massive trade ship.

And still, it does not waver. The person at the helm does not so much as flinch.

Tendo cocks his head and blinks his paper lantern eyes. A smile curls up his face, corners brushing each high cheekbone. With a traveling shake, from his hair down to the talons of his feet, water sprays off of him, landing on the already sea-damp rock he sat crouched on. His fluffed up feathers stand off his body like goosebumps, ready for flight. With a single push of his long legs, he is thrown into the air, tossed about like a plaything of the fickle island winds.

Ultimately, though, he and the winds are on friendly enough terms. They throw him closer and closer to the ship, dropping him onto the side. His long pointed fingers scramble with high pitched screeches along the fresh orange paint and up a support beam until he’s climbed into a comfortable position on top of the puce roof, crouching over the helmsman.

Only then does he feel the man glance up at Tendou’s perch, though Tendou knows he is hidden from view, one hand disengaging from the helm to rest on the handle of the Tachi in his sheath.

“Ooooo,” Tendou says, “Are you gonna cut me up, samurai?” he asks. The man’s stoic face, as Tendou can see it from above, does not move, and he does not answer. Tendou tilts his head and licks some tangy sea salt off the feathers of his wrist as he assesses his newest meal. 

The man is taller and broader than Tendou, exceedingly large for a human. Unlike many of the other samurai Tendou has led to ruin, this one is still wearing full armor despite being far out at sea. The rivets in his black chest plate gleam purple, the ties that keep it secured and knit together the shoulder pads looking like vines of dark wisteria intertwined with his body. His face’s stern demeanor is enhanced by the metallic hanbo of the same color that secures his throat and chin.

Perhaps the reason he is not even trying to look at Tendou is that he cannot turn his head at all. Tendou lets out a screeching laugh at the thought, though he knows from experience it is not the truth. Even at this alarming sound, the man does not waver.

The interesting parts of the human, Tendou decides, are above the hanbo and bellow the waning moon horns of his helmet. His sharp and intense eyes burn at the horizon, resolved on the goal of still far-off lands. Tendou licks his dry lips, salt stinging along the cracks.

“Hey, so far from home, and you’re still wearing full armor? Don’t ya know you can take it off? Nobody will say anything about it.” No answer. “Hmmm. There’s a superior bellow deck hiding with the rest of the crew, ain’t there? That’s why you hafta wear it. I should go check!” He baits, tightening his talons on the edge of the roof so he can rise into a stooped standing position, arms hanging down past his feathered knees.

“My armor is a burden and pride I am prepared and willing to carry. I will not remove it for the sake of comfort,” the man replies, as Tendou knew he would. This samurai, the only one on the deck of a ship crossing siren infested waters, has been tasked with the protection of the rest of the crew and whatever merchandise they are hauling bellow. Like all those before him, he believes he will do whatever it takes to complete that task. Like all those before him, he will surrender that duty for the sake of the desire Tendou’s kind promises and never delivers on.

“How responsible! How noble! I wonder how fast you’ll drown in it!”

The man still does not so much as flinch, and Tendou finds himself a bit impressed. 

“I have no intention of entering the water. You will have to return empty-handed, monster,” he says instead.

“Ooof, right where it hurts!” Tendo puts his clawed hand to his heart and swoons backward as if hit by one of the arrows in the quiver across the man’s back. “I have feelings, ya know, and a name! Speaking of which, what’s yours?”

Silence.

Fair enough. He’s rarely been to the Japanese mainland, but Tendou knows they knew enough of the yokai not to be giving out their names without thought. He’s never had a conversation with a genuine Japanese sailor, though, not in his waters. They’ve never lasted past his song.

Not wholly accurate, Tendou supposes. There was one man, the one who had been enthralled by his song at first, but his desire for his partner had ultimately won out over Tendou’s musical spell. He’d lost his cargo and portions of his ship but saved most of his crew. Tendou had congratulated him while the man clung to the deck, helmet knocked aside and hateful brown eyes glaring out from under dripping brown hair. His not so human partner, an oni perhaps, had ultimately saved his life.

This man, though, he is alone. He doesn’t stand a chance. So Tendou sees no harm seeing if there is any more entertainment to be gotten in conversation.

“I guess that was rude to ask, huh, without giving you mine? Hmmm, I know. You can call me Sa-to-ri!” Tendou also knows better than to give a human his proper name, though this is one he identifies with well.

The man’s eyebrows furrow.

“You are not a satori,” he says.

“Ah, but I can read your mind like one!”

The man’s lips flatten.

“That’s mean; you don’t believe me. It’s the truth, though. Kinda.” To an extent, anyway. Sirens are not so much the mind readers satoris are, but their intuition is beyond comparison. They can pick out and piece together desire like a hawk plucks fish out of the sea. It is not often an incredibly fulfilling venture, though. All humans are the same. “I can prove it!”

The man’s shoulders draw back in alarm, hand fully unsheathing his tachi as Tendou opens his mouth and sings his familiar notes. It is, Tendou knows, too late. 

At this distance, his well-worn song-- promises of base desires, pleasure, control, domination, sex--is a direct guide into Tendou’s open arms and, soon after, between his sharpened teeth. He weaves it through the air with the sensuality of a silk ribbon, notes twirling across those steely eyes and slipping under the plates of that heavy armor, promises, a flash of hot skin, promises, a breathy voice against his ear, promises, the complete docile submission of a partner.

No longer concerned about being seen for the deformed monster he is, and mistakenly breaking the immersion, Tendou hops off the roof and allows his feathers to catch enough wind to land him on the painted red railing. The human will reach for him and overbalance, tumbling into the bright azure depths of Tendou’s hunting ground.

When the human finally turns to look, though, it is not with clouded desire, but with calculating suspicion, still holding his sword and estimating the difference between its reach and Tendou's perch.

Their eyes meet. The samurai’s assessing gaze tears over Tendou’s scraggy chimera body, sun-darkened skin covered eternally in the harsh salt rocks that scratch under his feathers, and mouth and teeth stained with peeling blood.

The song does not draw him in, and so in this moment, the man sees Tendou in a way no non-bewitched human has and lived to tell--lived to judge. He is seeing him in a way that betrays the ethereal allure of a siren song as nothing but the hasty trappings of beauty covering an ugly soul. 

Tendou has made a mistake. The intense subtropical sun burns along his skin, but it pales in comparison to the chilling burn of those eyes, like a sword made of ice through his stomach, more potent than the one the samurai holds could ever be.

Next thing he is cognizant of, the winds are battering Tendou, sea spray stinging like iron arrows against his cheeks as he puts distance between himself and his cold humiliation.

…:::*:::...

The next time Tendou sees the ship, he stays on his favorite sawtoothed rock and considers the form this lone samurai makes against the empty sea. 

Pushing the past out of his mind, he stands tall and breathes in the heavy hair, lungs drinking in the energy that fuels his voice. This time, he tries a new song, not about power and sex, but pure and honest about lust and desire. Most humans he’s entranced are fans of the former, but some crave the latter, a sexual partner and not an object of desire. It is the natural change in tune his song would have taken had he not miscalculated so erroneously the first time. He had simply assumed from the rich armor and proud features that a man of power would desire a surrender of will.

This altered song dances differently, not like silk ribbons but like the fire that flickers behind half-lidded eyes and licks fiercely at willing bodies, searching to devour. Tendou sways as he sings with it until his own body is burning.

The ship does not waver.

…:::*:::...

Love is a creation of the hormonally unstable meat that rests between the ears of creatures who have yet to discover what hormones even are, much less that they are slaves to them.

That is what Tendou believes, anyway, even if some of the others--the sirens that hunt in packs of twos or threes, the oft paired vetallas, the ancient Scylla and Charybdis--say otherwise. Regardless, he is not above singing a song that promises this impossible thing if it means entrapping the human that continues to slip through his clutches.

The music that twirls around him this time is an old balled, an ancient one of his people that sees little use. If domination is a silk ribbon and lust a fire, love sounds like a ribbon awash in flame. It burns low and steady along the delicate threads, renewing the earth that grows the trees where the silkworms do their work. Tendou sings of new things, of regrowth, of intertwining yourself with another using a rope that does not chafe and heat that does not burn.

Tendou promises his lonely samurai a passion and romance that will fill the empty half of the man’s soul, if only he could reach Tendou’s island. It’s not so far, not for fulfillment, Tendou promises. Look how welcoming the waters are, cool and pleasurable on this hot summer’s day, if only you would jump in. You will make it, and at the end you will find something humans have claimed to fight a thousand wars for. It is a lie so deep and underhanded that even Tendou feels a moment of pity in the empty caverns of his humming heart.

The sound of creaking wood like the bellow of a whale replies to Tendou’s song. The ship is tilting, and Tendou crouches in half anticipation for the meal soon to be caught by the spider’s web of glittering light that crisscrosses the water’s surface. 

The ship corrects course.

No matter how Tendou screeches after that, it does not waver.

…:::*:::...

There is nothing to be done about it. Tendou has exhausted all the stock human desires he has a song for. This man does not crave powerful domination nor pleasurable desire nor even actualizing love. He has made three trips across Tendou’s waters without so much as being inconvenienced by the siren’s presence. The only way to put a stop to it is for Tendou to stop generalizing and use his bragged of powers of perception to find the true desire of this samurai’s heart.

Past humiliation thrown to the less cerebral birds than himself, the next time the light of his eye catches the well-protected merchant vessel, Tendou flutters into the air. Landing on the roof and peering over the edge, he can see how the samurai puts a hand to his tachi once more. There is something less urgent about it, though. He has heard three of Tendou’s songs, has seen the unappealing awkwardness of his true face and lived to speak about it. Whatever threat Tendou poses does not seem quite so intimidating now.

“Soooooo, not so into sex, are you, samurai?” No answer. “Hey, it’s okay. I totally get it, believe me. I’ve never got what humans are on about with it, ya know? But humans are strange creatures with strange desires for sure. I guess only they can understand.”

Silence.

“You’re really the strong and silent type, ya know, samurai? Not like the guy who tried to cross before you, a real talker he was, but I guess it worked for him. Maybe I need to go below deck to find someone good to talk to!”

Tendou waits, again feeling that unpleasant nip in the cavern of his heart.

“Oikawa-san spoke of you,” the man says after a wave crests along the boat’s side, covering them in mist. “A monster with the voice and appearance of temptation that sunk his cargo and near drowned his crew,”

“Oh! So that was his name. Are you sure you’re comfy just giving it out like that to a monster?”

“The knowledge is of no worth to you. He will not be sailing this route again. I have been deemed the more fit protector,”

“Ooof, confidant, aren’t ya?”

“That is a statement of fact,”

“I’ll bet he doesn’t like that,”

“He has declared us rivals,”

“Ha! What a good time. He came close to resisting, I guess, but I still got him with my first song. He wants that control so badly I can tell he tasted it. It was unlucky for me his monstrous lover was there, or he wouldn’t have been able to share that fun little story at all,”

“To whom do you refer?”

“Ya know, the oni he’s totally fooling around with.”

Silence again, but this one more expectant. Tendou cranes his head over the roof’s edge, tilting a little to the side to see under the helmet how the helmsman’s eyebrows have drawn together.

“I guess they’re hiding their relationship, huh? It’s the one that’s always next to him with the wild hair,” Tendou clarified. The tense face relaxed, perhaps a bit too much.

“Iwaizumi-san is an oni?” His voice is as straightforward and level as always, but the surprise is discernible to Tendou’s musical senses in the hesitance of the underlying bass.

“Whoops, was I not supposed to say that? Was it a secret, too? Hey, don’t tell, okay?”

“That would be irresponsible,”

“Hey now, that’s not fair. They’ve been together for a while, and he isn’t hurting anybody, right?”

“No,”

“So it’d be pretty messed up to out him like that. Think of what they’ll do to him on the mainland. That’s not fair, and I’d feel super bad about it. Don’t tell, please?”

“... I will consider it,”

“Thank you! But you know, you owe me a name, now. I gave you information, so now you have to give it back!”

“I did not enter any deal with you,”

“I guess not, but that’s bad form! How untrustworthy! Comeon, samurai, just one name? What can I do with just your family name? It’s too impersonal for anything really effective,”

“I am the protector of my family name. I will not betray it to a sea monster,”

“Now that’s just mean. I’m really not into the cursing business; I just eat what comes my way. Cross my heart and hope to die! How about this, a deal with a monster is binding, you agree?”

“Yes,”

“Okay then, I swear that if I receive your family name, I will do nothing to harm any _other _carrier of the bloodline. From now on, they will have safe passage across this sea,”__

__The wind pulls Tendou’s hair back from his forehead, and he can hear the way it whistles across the samurai’s heavy armor._ _

__“That’s a good deal, take it!”_ _

__“I will consider it,” the man says._ _

__“Boo, no fun.” Tendou raises his head to the horizon and, with a shiver across his frame, realizes he is reaching the limits of his own territory. Any further and he will be subject to a fight with something not so easily swayed by a sweet melody. “Well, I gotta take my leave,” he says, “but first…”_ _

__This song has the quick-pace of a Tanto dagger slid between shoulder blades, and the bitter warble of a defeated friend. It captures that moment of proving oneself, proving ability and proficiency, and, most of all, superiority. It is a song of conquered rivalry that cuts through the chinks in any armor._ _

__It takes only a few notes for the helmsman to unsheathe his sword and hold it at the ready. Tendou stops his song._ _

__“Ya, I didn’t think so, but it was worth a try,” he admits. “But I guess the rivalry was more Oikawa’s idea, huh?” Tendo stands and stretches his arms towards the sky. He shakes out each of his legs, talons clicking on the roof. “See ya next time!” He jumps._ _

__The sky has only just taken hold of him when the wind manages to deliver to him a gift too heavy to ride it._ _

__“Ushijima.”_ _

__Tendou bares his pointed teeth at the sun._ _

__“See ya next time, Ushi-chan!”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part two to come ~~tomorrow! (... hopefully. I'm working on these day by day, so please be patient with me)~~ ...soon. T.T
> 
> Fun ‘fact’: according to wikipedia, "Sirens used to be portrayed as males and females, but male Siren disappeared from art around fifth century BC." However, this particular claim was not sourced, so idk. Still, it’s interesting if it’s true. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The experience of having to cultivate his songs is a new one, and Tendou finds he is uncovering as much about himself as he is about Ushijima.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UshiTen Week Day 5- **Home / Proposals / Magic/Fantasy AU**
> 
> The word home is mentioned, so I'm counting it.
> 
> cw for near-death experience. Details in end notes.

Tendou begins to look forward to the few times a month he can land on top of the large merchant vessel and attempt to pick apart the mind of his lonely samurai.

He realizes Ushijima is not putting up a brave face for his encounters with a monster. That straight-laced stoic attitude is just the person he is, and Tendou can’t say he doesn’t somewhat admire it.

“So, U-shi-ji-ma, tell me about yourself,”

“For what reason?”

“So that I can find the perfect way to ensnare you,”

“That does not seem to be in my best interest,”

“Hearing a siren song tailored specially for you has to be the opportunity of a lifetime. A lot of humans would just _die_ for it,”

“I do not believe I have such a weakness for you to exploit,”

“Then you’ve got nothing to lose! Comeon, you come from a long line of samurai, right?”

“...Yes,”

“Hmmm. What was that like?”

“It is a great honor to serve my Shogun and my country,”

“Right, right. But I mean, what was it like growing up like that? With, like, a family and all?”

“My childhood was comfortable and fair… Do you not have a family, Satori?”

“Kinda. There are others, other monsters that hunt in these waters. We look out for each other,”

“Did they raise you?”

“Eh, not exactly. I suppose that’s on me. I guess now you know why I have such terrible table manners! Maybe a parent would have told me not to play with my food,” he cackles, tapping his claws and talons against the wood of the small roof with a steady rhythm. 

“I see… I grew up under the care of my mother’s family, as my father had little standing. My rearing was left mostly to servants and teachers. My parents fought often, and I often found myself the primary point of contention until my father was sent away,”

“Oh.” Tendou blinks and leans back. “I’m sorry,”

“It’s fine,”

“Ya know, that’s not really what I would call comfortable and fair,”

“I wanted for nothing,”

“Really? You didn’t ever want more from them?”

Ushijima is silent. Tendou shakes his head and licks salt off his lips, feather’s fluffing. A few loose ones catch in his matted shoulders, and he reaches around himself to preen, plucking out bent primaries and allowing them to be snatched away by the breeze. “... I did have parents, once,” Tendou admits.

This part of the world is always scorching, the air weighed down with humidity, yet a cutting chill overtakes Tendou. It always does, when he thinks of the past. Violence no longer phases Tendou. How could it if he is to eat? But there are moments when his hunger immigrates from his stomach to languish in his head, and the blood caught in his feathers and beneath his claws sizzles with a thin viscosity that doesn’t strike Tendou as human. Siren blood runs like water. 

“I don’t remember it super good. I was a fledgling when they left me in another bird’s nest, like a cuckoo. My, ah… conscripted foster parents caught on that I wasn't’ one of theirs, though. Can’t blame them for chasing me out.” A childhood scar itches along his back, three parallel lines right between his shoulder blades. “I’ve been looking out for myself ever since.” A flock of seabirds squawk overhead, chasing each other in a familial dance against the clear molten sky. “I have strange memories of something happening, something bloody… I don’t think it was their choice, to abandon me… Maybe that’s just wishful thinking.” White avian bodies reflect the sunlight with an intense urgency that burns Tendou’s salt-filled eyes.

“I apologize if I have caused you pain with my inquiry. It was not my intention,” Ushijima says.

“What, pain, me? Never! What kinda monster do you think I am?” The feathers on the back of Tendou’s arm scratch against his cheeks as he wipes at them, more content than normal to be out of Ushijima's line of sight. Tendou sways with the movement of the ship as he stands, body stiff and hunched over.

“I believe you are a siren. That said, I have seen enough monsters defeated in my time to know that pain is not unknowable to them. I myself know that family can be a source of… distress.”

So many thoughts flock in Tendou’s heart, and he cannot allow any of them to roost too long, so instead, he opens his mouth and takes advantage of weakness, as he always does.

This song is more bitter than Tendou perhaps intended. It soars up to join the birds and intertwines with their play like a long lost relation. It cries out for attention in soft warbles, and the excited bass of a parent answers the need without hesitation, a comfort rolled up in a blanket thick with the water of the womb. Birds of a feather, it promises, forever flock together. Families bring happiness in the air, it promises, if only you’ll surrender first to the sea.

 _I’ll hold you tight_ , Tendou says without words, without really meaning too, without knowing if he’ll have the nerve to squeeze when the time comes.

Maybe, Tendou thinks, while Ushijima stands, fingers tight around the helm but otherwise unaffected, the song doesn’t work not because Ushijima doesn’t desire his family whole and happy as the notes promise, but because Tendou doesn’t have enough experience to make the fulfillment of the wish convincing. 

The song ends with a whimper, voice cracking like a chickadee. Somehow, though, Tendou is not altogether dissatisfied with his failure. The song was honest in a way he has had little experience in for a long time.

“Well,” Tendou says, brushing himself off. “Even if that didn’t work, it’s a nice thought, don’t ya think?”

Ushijima doesn’t answer for an aching moment.

“Yes. It is.”

…:::*:::...

“Where was your father sent away too?” Tendou asks one visit.

“A distant land,”

“Do you ever talk to him?”

“It is too far for reliable correspondence, though I have received a few letters over the years,”

“Hmmm.” Arm swinging loosely off the roof of his perch, Tendou’s claws almost brush against the gold of Ushijima’s helmet. The purple ties of his uniform glint in a way that drives something primal in Tendou to pull them out and weave them into his nest. It’s a thought that blindsides him like a stranger, because Tendou is not in the practice of building homes.

“He was a samurai, too?”

“No. He worked on a ship before wedding my mother,”

“Oh, I see! He taught you how to sail?”

“Yes,”

“Do you think he’s still sailing, somewhere?”

“I do not know,”

“Then… do you think he’d be happy that you are, too?” Tendou asks, stretching down just enough that he can tap Ushijima’s kuwagata. The metallic ring somehow echoes above the static rumble of the sea and wind. Ushijima does not flinch, allowing Tendou more and more leeway with each visit. 

“Perhaps,” he answers instead. One day Tendou will take advantage of that trust to simply pounce instead of worrying about all this song stuff… but not today.

This song is only a key different from the last, plucking out its refrain and polishing it into something tall and proud. The chick that once called out for its parents has returned to the nest with an eagle’s steady protective wings, cushioning air ringing regal windchimes as it lands. Those that taught it once to fly join in with admiring whistles that ensnare listening hearts with the kind of trap no one ever wishes to escape. 

Ushijima listens, face relaxed, and so Tendou continues even when he realizes this song--one of pride and reunions--will not end in a meal. He plays with the melody and finetunes the notes until his own soul vibrates with the sound.

At its close, the song melts into the waters and sinks into the ship’s rumble.

“I would be proud of you,” Tendou says aloud, without his song’s protection.

“Thank you.”

They are nearly free of Tendou’s waters when Ushijima speaks again.

“If you do not believe your parents intended to leave you behind, it is likely you have their pride as well,”

Tendou laughs, though his delicate ribs, hollow bones so good for flight and so bad for bearing heavy weights, bend inward.

“I guess so, huh? That’s nice, to think they wouldn’t mind what I’ve grown into.”

…:::*:::...

“I am human,” Ushijima says one day. Tendou startles. Though rarely ever hostile anymore, it is so very uncommon for Ushijima to initiate conversation. It seems less a product of distrust, and more a facet of his personality. It is especially rare for him to state something so self-evident. 

“Uhh, I know?”

“What I mean to say, is it does not make me less human,” Ushijima tries again, eyebrows furrowed.

“What?”

“Upon our first or second meeting, you spoke about my lack of sexual desire. You said you could not understand such drives because it is an aspect of human nature, and only humans could. But I do not understand it. That does not make me less human.”

Oh, a crack in the armor.

Tendou’s stomach rumbles with a sudden ravenous anticipating hunger. He should pry apart this vulnerability, unclasping each piece of protective plating and spilling free the vicious insecurities he now knows are packed together within like wriggling intestines. And yet…

“You’re right,” he says, blunt and factual, the way he knows Ushijima will most appreciate it. “I only said that to get under your skin. I apologize. It doesn’t make you any less human. I should know. I am an expert on humanity.”

And Tendou can feel it bubbling up, a song like a heavy blanket in a storm, one about acceptance and belonging and being seen for who you truly are.

He swallows it down. Maybe because it feels too underhanded for even a monster of temptation and lies, maybe because it hits a little too close to home. Is it possible for him to become swept up in his own melody, sinking to the depths of his desires and drowning in words that pile up in his throat? Not even having Ushijima is worth that level of self-discovery.

Or, at least, _eating_ Ushijima isn't’ worth that level of self-discovery. Is that still what he wants, though? Does he continue to visit this lonely samurai only in anticipation of a hearty meal?

His next actions are impulsive, but he does not regret them even years later. The wind picks up, and Tendou catches it in his arms, allowing it to pluck him off the roof and throw him onto the ship’s railing. His talons curl around the bar, and now Tendou is crouching in the same place where Ushijima first saw him. This time, though, it is by choice that Ushijima is not entranced to see a beauty that isn’t there. This time, Tendou is baring himself, scrawny and inadequate and monstrous, to those stern eyes.

 _Acceptance_ , he tries to say without words or song, _is something I want, too_.

The result, seen now with a level of clarity instead of overwhelming panic, is a moment of rare surprise, followed by a steadfast study of his frame that does not seem half as judgmental as his own thoughts. Ushijima looks at him, and he sees him, and he makes no indication of judgment, of disgust.

“I have never seen such a bright shade of red. It is striking,” Ushijima says once he’s had his fill, and is concentrating back on the horizon. The statement might have soon been provem false if he had continued to look, for Tendou’s dark golden skin takes on a, if not necessarily bright, certainly rather similarly glowing shade.

…:::*:::...

“Why do you keep talking to me? It’s just giving me more chances to guess your desire,”

“I find listening to your songs not altogether unpleasant. It is an acceptable risk,”

“Ushi! Are you saying listening to my voice really is worth dying for?” Tendou chirps in excitement, smile to his ears as he sunbathes on the deck.

“I did not realize you still wished to kill me.”

Tendou does not have a real answer to that.

“I don’t know, you know. If you were to fall… I do not know what I would do,” Tendou admits. The moments between when his prey touches the water, and when he is sitting on his island feasting is a washing blur of bubbles and blood. Instinct is a powerful thing, and he has long had uninterrupted practice surrendering to it. Not to say it is beyond his control, but if there is even a hint of him that would prefer to have a meal rather than deal with this strange new vulnerability, he will allow himself to let go. “I am a monster, after all,”

“I see…. Satori?”

“Ya?”

“If it is in your nature to kill, then my months of knowing you are a source of great confusion to me.”

A wobbly smile takes over Tendou’s face at Ushijima’s genuinely perplexed expression.

“You said you like flowers, right? I’ve been working on a song about the world’s most gorgeous garden. Wanna hear it?”

The song is silly and whimsical and has no chance of entangling anyone at all. Tendou pairs it with a little jumping dance across the deck of the ship. It may have been the wind’s music, but Tendou almost thinks he may have heard Ushijima laugh.

When the song finishes, Tendou’s chest is heaving, his breath stolen both by wonder and exertion. The waters surrounding them are crystal blue under a white sun, and when Tendou considers going for a swim, he imagines Ushijima shedding his armor and joining him.

In his imagination, they hold onto each other, and maybe Tendou’s hands are even in the vicinity of Ushijima’s unprotected neck, but neither one of them is drowning. 

…:::*:::...

Summer is nearly at an end when Tendou begins to molt.

It is troublesome and unpleasant, and he pouts as he untangles the weaker feathers from their brethren. 

The sea is wild today, foam pushing up against his jagged perch as he tries to enjoy the comfortable breeze. He doesn’t remember, but he thinks the moon may be full tonight. Either way, as the days shorten, he finds himself placing the finishing touches on a new song, one that blooms naturally from his lungs in an unfamiliar but not uncomfortable manner. He sings it to himself as he preens, thinking of his past and his future. There is some surprise to be found in the realization that the song is not nearly as unhappy as he would have expected. There are unhappy bits, regrets and pains and a streak of high-pitched cruelty, but overall he thinks there might be something pleasant and authentic about the tune.

The music is loud, like he is, and it nearly drowns out the splash. Only those monstrous instincts, fine-tuned especially to the exact sound of a body hitting the water, causes Tendou to cut off his song and stand up straight off his rock to look around.

In his distraction with both his music and his molt, Tendou had missed the arrival of Ushijima’s ship.

There is no one at the helm.

There are ripples in the water.

Tendou screeches and jumps into the air.

Wings flapping frantically, Tendou rises high enough on the wind that his cheeks burn with it. Then he folds himself in half and dives. His hands part the water for his body, his momentum bringing him deep enough to turn the cyan island water azure. The transparent window in his nictitating membranes allows him to see clearly through the sea.

It sets Tendou’s chest running to see such uncharacteristic panic in Ushijima’s eyes as he sinks downward, battling with the armor that is betraying him to the depths despite his steadfast loyalty to it. The helmet and an armguard sink fast beside him, but his chest piece’s grapevine ties are a fruitless endeavor to his desperate fingers. Bubbles detonate from his nose and mouth.

With a few strong kicks downward, Tendou can reach out until his claws dig into a shoulder pad. Ushijima’s head snaps to him, hair floating around his head and eyes big and afraid.

He looks like prey.

This is the part where Tendou holds his hands around a neck and kicks further downward, knowing he can hold his breath much longer than a struggling human. This is the part where Tendou’s carnivorous teeth sink into tense flesh. 

It is unlikely Ushijima can make out much besides a blur of incongruous red, but he relaxes anyway, giving up on the hopeless armor to concentrate instead on kicking upwards and reaching towards Tendou. The message, intentional or not, is clear. Despite everything Tendou has said and done, despite Tendou's self-proclaimed nature, Ushijima is not struggling in his hold. Ushijima saw Tendou and instinctually identified him not as an extension of the waves already pulling him under, but as an obvious means of salvation from their depths.

The trust is overwhelming; it burns through Tendou's empty stomach. In response, Tendou somersaults in the water so he can dig his talons rather than his pointed fingers into Ushijima’s shoulders, leaving his winged arms free to pull them towards the surface like an eagle does a fish.

They breach the waves in a mess of red feathers, molting expedited by the strain, and lung-deep spitting coughs that shake Ushijima’s entire frame.

“Stay still!” Tendou demands as he attempts to keep them afloat despite his missing feathers and Ushijima’s not-inconsiderable weight.

The hacking coughs continue as Tendou sloppily rides the breeze towards his rocky island, Ushijima half submerged. Finally, though, they arrive, and Tendou drags Ushijima onto a small flat-enough outcropping where he can just barely sit propped up by the rocks.

“What happened!? Did you fall? How?!” Tendou gasps, hands on his knees as he tries to catch his breath. Ushijima reaches out and grabs Tendou’s wrist even as he doubles over, seawater pouring clumped from his mouth and nose.

Ah, well, questions can wait, Tendou decides as he rubs Ushijima’s back and works on loosening the armor over his shoulders. When they fall into the water, Tendou cringes. Blood stains Ushijima's shirt in three even punctures on either side, the force of Tendou's talons fossilized into Ushijima's skin. Trying to ignore the rather novel feeling of guilt, Tendou works on Ushijima's chest piece, knowing he needs to undo it before the ties dry and tighten to near impossibility.

By the time the job is done, Ushijima is gasping instead of coughing, and with the weight of the armor relieved from over his lungs, Ushijima's struggling peters out enough that Tendou can once again hear the sounds of the ocean.

“I… ah, I apologize,” he says, voice understandably scratchy and broken. Tendou would not even have recognized it as Ushijima's if not for Tendou's attunement to sound. “I do not know what overtook me. I… I threw myself overboard?” 

“All that time trying to lure you, and you jump in now for no reason!?”

Ushijima shakes his head. He coughs again before straightening up to meet Tendou’s eyes.

“I heard something indescribable calling me to the waves. I did not want to resist. You have found the right song,”

“The right song? I wasn’t even--” Tendou thinks of his distracted singing, offhanded and personal. It was a song that celebrated who he was and the happiness he found through exploring his voice and discovering his propensity for something not-quite monstrous. That song was, in essence, about...

“Me. You… want _me_? When did _that_ happen?”

“I am… unsure.”

Tendou realizes Ushijima had gone from denying he had any weakness to exploit, to only stipulating that listening to Tendou’s music was worth the risk of him discovering it. Whatever his greatest desire had been before,--if one great enough to pull him into the arms of a monster existed at all-- it had changed, and it had changed into one who’s very function was to pull him into the arms of that same monster, no deceit necessary. 

“Wow…” Tendou says for lack of any other response.

Shaking hands rise to cup Tendou’s face, unconcerned by serrated teeth or dried blood or sharp waxy feathers. Water flows between them, damp but warm on Tendou's cheeks under Ushijima's hands, and down Ushijima's face as it drips from his drenched hair. Between the rivulets, steady brown eyes, irritated red but no less intense for it, lock onto Tendou's with a single-minded serenity. A thumb brushes his cheekbone.

“I have told you I do not understand desires of the body. That remains true. Those of the heart, though, I have come to realize are not beyond me,”

“Me neither,” Tendou swallows.

“Good.” Ushijima slides forward to wrap his arms around Tendou’s frame, body heavy and waterlogged as he heaves deep breaths. “My name is Wakatoshi. Stay by my side,” he rasps from his damaged throat.

Maybe it’s the near-death experience, but the words and hug are desperate and intense enough to weave through Tendou's heart and make him realize a piece was missing. It makes Tendou wonder who between them has really been lured in and enthralled.

He returns the embrace. His broken heart fills with music.

“I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: Ushijima nearly drowns. There are allusions to the fact that Tendou has drowned people, and there's a lot of hacking up seawater near the end. Ushijima is pretty shaken up by the experience, in his own way.
> 
> Whew. Crossing this one of the bucket-list. To the people who have been waiting since the first chapter, thanks so much for your patience, and I hope this delivered.
> 
> [ my tumblr ](https://phantomangofics.tumblr.com)


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